Finding Character in Comics

Looking at character development through the super hero origin story 

I know that reading graphic novels can seem “too easy” to readers in fourth and fifth grade who should be reading chapter books. When a page has mostly pictures, telling the reader how to understand character, plot, and setting. 

This labeling can be too heavy handed when a new reader should have some practice reading a book and assemble the goings on in the theater of their mind. This is a special gift that we humans have, to translate words to image and story, and graphic novels just simply take away from this. 

But I’m here to say that children should read graphic novels, if only to get comfortable reading. They should read them alongside their longer books, they should have the satisfaction of completing a book, and they should be welcomed into the complex and highly niched world of comic books. 

One of the reasons I love comic books is that they have such interesting characters, characters who wear their characteristics, literally, on their sleeves or who emulate their characteristics in hyperbolic ways. Many students identify with these characters as a way to feel empowered, or justified. Many comics offer universes with multiple endings, collaborative narratives, and decentralized main characters. For example, a super hero may show up as a side character in another hero’s story. 

I like to use the inspiration of comic books to help students develop character. But you would not have the hero or the villain – or the antihero without their origin story. 

As an educator you can work with students of many ages on this topic. First begin with some age appropriate graphic novel characters (this includes, but is not limited to superheroes and villains). Review their origin stories and observe the ways their origin stories play into their motivations, super powers, and struggles as characters. Importantly, it would define their demon, which could take the form of their enemy or their own shadow. Nemesis literally comes from the Greek, “to allot” or “give what is due”. Through their character’s origin story, what do they feel is owed to them? Who do they owe? (this is important for fiction writer’s to consider at every level). And any child from the age of three has an innate sense of justice. 

For younger students I like to review what cause and effect are. Provide a few examples so that students can practice identifying repercussions. They can start by writing a few sentences. Think about cause and effect in relation to the origin stories of the characters you looked at. 

1. Have your students write an origin story. It should be short, not more than a page long. But give it texture: add sensory details that portray the emotion that the character will carry with them. 

2. For students who are just learning parts of speech, this would be a great time to make an illustration of their characters and add verbs, adjectives, adverbs, nouns, even prepositional phrases that have to do with the character. 

3. Go ahead and make a comic, make a movie, or just write a scene in prose in which the character discovers their super power, has an encounter with their nemesis. Things to think about
   1. How do they react to this power? Do they accept or reject it? Do they show others? How do they transform their identity to fit this power as in, does their body transform or do they have a suit or both?
   2. for their nemesis: what does “winning” against their nemesis look like? In this scene who “wins”? 
   3. Leave us with a cliffhanger: drop one hint at the end that will link to the next scene.